Image processing apparatus and method setting color separation parameter based on image data change resulting from lossy compression and expansion

Abstract

An image processing apparatus executes color conversion so that when printing is performed based on image data compressed and decompressed with a lossy compression method, the image data reproduces expected colors of the image data before compression. More specifically, a range of a signal value of a black image affected by compression of image data, such as black character to be printed with black ink, is obtained, and a color separation table is generated such that color ink is not used but black ink is used within this range. This allows the image data to reproduce expected colors of the image data before compression when printing is performed based on the image data compressed and decompressed with a lossy compression method.

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